Building a learning community

Sohan Anand: Where Are The Teachers!

How many of us are willing to commit our children to the teaching profession? I am afraid not many hands will go up. Next five years are going to see a huge deficit of quality teachers, a drought, if I may say so. If no serious and immediate steps are taken to address the situation, there is a grave danger of the system collapsing.

Actually, schools in India have become big business. Private Schools, by and large are in the hands of moneyed individuals, most of whom may not have been to school, leave aside having any experience. The sole purpose is to make money by twisting and manipulating the system in connivance with govt officials who are more than ever keen to extend a helping hand.

About Govt Schools, the less said the better. Corruption is rampant and schools bereft of bare minimum facilities. What little is giving in form of aid and grants is siphoned off by unscrupulous officials. More often than not Principals and teachers are active partners in such murky dealings.

Children are subjected to brutal beatings on schools, rapes and sexual harassment by members of teaching faculty, poor quality teaching, using schools to promote tuition culture are all symptomatic of the fact that the rot is deep and irreversible.

Little wonder, no quality person wants to commit itself to teaching profession. Where will the teachers come from?

Yet lndia needs quality teachers more than ever before. I am not for a moment suggesting that the schools will go without teachers, but certainly without quality teachers. The profession will be picked up by those who have failed to make it else where. Coming with such a frustrated mindset, such frustrated people are bound to spread more frustration and dissatisfaction. The signs of such a scenario are clearly visible. Conduct an impartial survey across the schools and see how many qualifies the test of time. So insensitive and callous have been our Universities, and so indiscriminately degrees distributed, that every second person holds a Masters or a Bed degree. A huge bulk of our teachers can't communicate, cannot write, cannot plan, cannot prioritize cannot delegate. Conceptualizing, analyzing rationalizing is simply beyond their thinking. They have simple never been taught.The future of the children passing through such hands can well be imagined. "He who can, does,he who cannot teaches", said Bernard Shaw.It appears so true today.

Politicians and our leaders have neither the time nor the imagination to give a serious thought to education and the role that it plays in nation building. They can only politicise education to suit there interest.

Govt must come up with a blueprint to reform the system. It is necessary to restore the credibility and dignity of the teaching profession so that quality people get attracted to the profession. We must genuinely recognize that the teachers are the creators of the character,of knowledge, of wealth, of health. The worth of the teacher must not be compared to any other profession.The uniqueness of the profession must be acknowledged and maintained. Only then we shall be able to attract quality people.

The government will do well to create a n all India teachers service on the lines of UPSC to choose the best talent and trained by top faculty of IIM's, IIT's and Corporate Managers. They should not only be trained in the art of teaching, but also in the art of man-management, social and child psychology, art of communication and so on. Bed should be done away with. It serves no useful purpose. It only adds to our ignorance. Teaching is an art, if you have it you'll teach or else not.

India today stands on the threshold of either becoming a super power or sink into such abysmal depths from which it may never recover. If India desires a place under the sun then teachers certainty have a huge role to play.